Anti-virus industry fails to keep up with new malware: report

The claims of the anti-virus industry, which grosses billions of dollars in revenue every year, have been found to be suspect with its products falling short of blocking all viruses.

The anti-virus software rarely, if ever, blocks freshly minted computer viruses, according to the New York Times, which quoted experts as saying that the virus creators move too quickly.

This has created a space for startups and other companies that seek different approaches to computer security.

The New York Times quotes Matthew D Howard, a venture capitalist at Norwest Venture Partners who previously set up the security strategy at Cisco Systems as saying that the bad guys were always trying to be a step ahead and it did take a lot to do that.

 Computer viruses used to be the happy hunting ground of digital mischief-makers. However, in the mid-2000s, when criminals discovered that they could make money from malicious software, the growth of new viruses registered an explosive increase.

While, in 2000, the number of new strains of malware totaled less than 1 million, mostly the handiwork of amateurs, by 2010 there were 49 million new strains, according to AV-Test, a German research institute that tests anti-virus products.